


Talk is Cheap

by drunknpylades



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Gen, Poe and Ben grew up together, Spoilers, Star Wars: The Force Awakens Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-31
Updated: 2015-12-31
Packaged: 2018-05-10 13:08:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5586814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drunknpylades/pseuds/drunknpylades
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Poe knew what Ben was like. Ben had nightmares. Ben needed extra blankets before he could go back to sleep. Ben was going to be the best of them.</p>
<p>This thing in a mask was not Ben. Not anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Talk is Cheap

**Author's Note:**

> There was a post on tumblr talking about Kylo Ren and Poe being about the same age, so of course my brain decided that they must have grown up together. Not sure about timelines and such, and nothing I've found really mentions what happens to Poe's father, so I kinda just hand waved over that. If there are any glaring mistakes let me know. This has no beta, and all characters are property of George Lucas and Disney.

"So who talks first? You know I'm not very good at this whole talking thing."

"Seems to me you never stop."

Poe feels a smile stretch across his face. If Ben had been looking at him the other boy probably would have smacked him one for the smug look he knows he's sporting now. This had become a routine of sorts. One or both of them would have a nightmare, then it would be a waiting game to see who would speak first. Poe lost nine times out of ten. His skin started to itch when it was quiet for too long. Ben, on the other hand, could sit quietly for hours. Sometimes for the rest of the night.

There had been one time when Poe was just so tired, so desperate for sleep that he'd left Ben alone after they'd both been woken up by a particularly bad nightmare. When the sun had finally risen, Poe had rolled over to find Ben huddled on his cot across the room. The younger boy was sitting up, back to the wall and knees drawn up around his ears, eyes red rimmed and wide open. Staring at Poe like two dark pools of blame. He'd never fallen asleep before Ben again. If the other boy didn't sleep, than neither did he.

They'd never told Han and Leia about the late nights they had. Poe had been sworn to secrecy, and Ben would never bring it up on his own. Hard to complain about ongoing nightmares when your father is Han Solo. Poe's parents may have been well known to the Resistance, but he didn't envy Ben his lineage. People seemed to expect more when you had Luke Skywalker for an uncle.

But that was neither here nor there. In this moment Poe was stretched out on his side, head propped up on one hand and looking across the dark room at Ben Solo.

 "That's kinda the point. I talk and distract you from whatever Jedi stuff is messing with your head and you sass me until you pout yourself back to sleep. It's a win-win, because then I get to go back to bed."

"You know you don't have to sit up with me. I'm not a baby."

Poe can hear the pout on the boy's face. He knows Ben's not a baby, but he is young. Only a few years younger than Poe himself, but Poe had had to grow up a little faster after losing his mother. His father had thrown himself into his work, going so far as to leave their home on Yavin 4 in favor of staying on one of the Resistance's bases. "To be closer to work." he'd said. "I can help more people now." Poe had been devastated at first. So much change in such a short time, and then they had thrown him into a room with a strange boy that spent more time awake than he did asleep. 

Ben had been the first of the two of them to extend an olive branch. After Poe had come violently awake calling for his mother he had found the younger boy sitting at his feet, already in the process of throwing another blanket over Poe's legs. "Uncle Luke says 'you have to take care of your body before you can address your mind'. You were shivering." It had had the ring of quotation marks around it and Poe remembers laughing at the kid trying to pitch his voice like an adult's.  


In the end they'd both huddled under the same blanket before finally drifting back to sleep mere minutes later. It had been the start of their little nighttime routine. One Poe never thought he'd actually miss.

When Ben started training with Luke and the other Apprentices everything had changed. Ben slept soundly through the night. On the night's when he'd actually come back to their room. Poe started seeing less and less of him, and when he did manage to actually talk to him something always seemed off.  


He'd wanted to talk to Han or Leia about it, but it wasn't really his place. The two had taken him under their wing a bit when he'd started looking after Ben, but he wasn't family. Not really.

Then it all came crashing down. 

The Apprentices were dead. Luke was gone. And it was all because of Ben. Or Kylo Ren as he was going by now.

Poe had known something wasn't right, but he would never have guessed it was something like this. He never would have thought Ben capable of something so dark. That was the heart of the problem wasn't it? the Dark Side. Something Poe could never hope to comprehend had taken hold of his friend and morphed him into something sinister and twisted.

Something Poe barely recognized the next time he saw him.

Han Solo left and Leia, General Organa, took up the mantle of leading the Resistance. Poe kept doing what he was good at. His nightmares still kept him up some nights, but now instead of seeing his mother shot down out of the sky he saw Ben. Some twisted thing all in red and black with sad, sad eyes saying he could have stopped it. If he'd just spoken up.

But it was too late for that now.

Now he was on his knees in the sand. An innocent man's blood soaking into his trousers while he looked into the masked face of a man that used to be like a kid brother to him.

"So who talks first? You talk first, I talk first?"


End file.
